Flooring



' units.

duced into the section necessary to sections are set CRADLE J. CARTER,

ago-1313 PATENT oI- ics.

on Kansas crrY, urssoum.

FLOORING.

Application filed July 22,

To all whom it may amwem:

Be it known .that 1, CHARLES J CARTER, a citizen of the. United States,residing at Kansas City, in the county of. Jackson and State ofMissouri, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Flooringand 1 do declare the following to be a full, clear, and exactdescription of the invention, such as will enable 0 hers skilled in theart to which it appertains to make and use the same, reference being hadto the accompanying drawings, and to the letters and figures ofreference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

This invention relates to flooring and particularly to a unit which maybe .so constructed at the factory that it may be laid down on a supportor foundation in an expeditious and convenient manner.

Certain types of wooden fioors are laid down in units, each unitconsisting of .a base board to which is fastened a plurality of floorblocks. The base boards are generally laid down with their fibersrunning in th'eusual way, that is, from end. to end. The floor blocks,however, have their fibers running vertically since theyoffer betterresistance to wear and tear when the ends of the fibers are subjected tothe wear than when the fibers .run longitudinally of the With such aconstruction it is usually the practice to key the block sectionstogether with the side edges of the blocks grooved so that the sectionsmay be keyed together by strips which enter aligning grooves of adjacentsections. Then nails are driven through the blocks of one section, andthrou blocks of an ad acent section.

My invention.

floor section in which. the nails are introbefore the section or unitleaves thefactory. Then it is only drive the nails home; that is,

to build drive them into an adjacent section up the floor.

If the nails are properly set in the sections before the sections leavethey can be driven in straight so that their points practicallyvpenetrate the sections, the extreme points, however, beingjust insidethe skins of the sections so that when the in place, unskilled'labor canbe used to drive the nails into the keying strips and into the adjacentsection ina convement manner.

- trating a key tion being 'vide dove-taiia gh its keyed strip into thecontemplates building a the factory,

1922. Serial No; 578,678.

My, invention, therefore, is confined to a floor section or unit havingthe nails initially driven into it so that the nails practioally but notquite penetrate the section and with the heads of the nails projectingin grooves so that the tool for nails home automatically finds them asit is moved along the grooves; the nails being long enough so that whenthey are driven home they may penetrate the key ing strip and enter thenext section to which the nail-carrying section is to be secured.

The novel construction of the invention will be clearly understood, byreference to the following description in connection with theaccompanying drawings, in which Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a floorsection constructed in accordance with my invention.

Fig. 2 is a cross sectional view on the line 22 of Fig. 1, and

Fig. 3 is a horizontal sectional view through a plurality of floorsections, the nails in one section being-shown as penestrip and enteringthe 'adjacent' section and the nails in another secfloor section.

stri' and a previously laid p invention I shall Inorder to disclose myshown ready to enter the keying drivmg the refer to it in connectionwith a known type of flooring.

The numeral 1 designates strip having on its upper of longitudinallydisposed a base board or tongues 2, to progrooves 3. Thetongueand-groove portion ofthe strip 1 inter-engages a similartongue-and-groove portion ace a plurality 4 on each block 5, the blocksbeing slid onto the strip from its end or ends.

In practice I prefer to form the blocks sothat the fibers will run fromthe bottoms of the blocks to the tops so that the ends of the fibersprovide the wearing surface for the floor section. This arrangement,however, specifically is not a part 0 the present invention as such aconstruction has been employed heretofore.

The blocks have their side edges, front and back, provided with aligninggrooves 6 and 7, the grooves running transversely'of the blocks butlongitudinally of the section so that elongated front and back groovesare provided for the section, as will be clearly apparent by referenceto Fi 1. The front sides of the respective bloc are provided withrecessesor countersunk portions 8, ep-

llG

I I proximate] of the nai s 10.

. tool or nail co-extensive with the heads 9 e recesses or countersunkortions 8 extend approximately halfway tlirough the block. actualpractice t is may be more or less dependent upon the len th of thenails.

- I he nails are introduced concentrically of the countersunk orrecessed portions 8 and are driven into the block until their points 11are practically to the surface of the walls 12 of the grooves 7 andtheir heads extend out of e, recessed portions 8 and 'e in the grooves 6or outwardly from the wall portions 13 of the grooves 6. The purpose ofpermitting the nail shanks to extend across the grooves 6 is to allow apunching set to be introduced elongated groove formed by grooves 7 toautomatically Thfin the set can be operated to drive the na Each keystrip 14 is approximatel twice the width of a groove 6 or 7; y

strip into the next section.

en the sections are formed in the factory, they will be shipped to thebuilding in w 10 form strip its undation by can be laid bui ding; then ak y strip will be inserted in the grooves 6, and then another sectionsimilar to 1 will be positioned next to it with the grooves 7 receivinghalf of the key strip 14. A nail set can then be run along the alignlnggrooves 6 until it comes into contact with The nails can be driven thatthe second section will, be fastened to the first. Another key strip'14will then be introduced into the aligning grooves 7 of the blocks of thesecond section and a third section can be lined up after the manner ofthe st and second. again be driven home.

Fig. 3 I have shown a section A confiistin f the blocks withthe nailsdriven is fastened'to a sec- C, the nails in the ome 1s section A tion Bby the key strip I tion when the floor has been same manner as if theyThen the nails will lk section B being driven D is keyed to the sectionB b strip 0' but the nails are in position to be iven through the keystrip G into the blocks of the section It is understood, of course, thatthe sections A, B and are all constructed in accordance with Fig. 1 andthat the key strips C and C are the key strips 14;.

It will be apparent from the foregoing that the floor sections may beeconomically arranged at the factory where there is skilled la or andwhere the construction of the sections may be under competent direction.

can be shipped to the buildings floor section, it be or er to lay downthe sections edge to edge.

It will be observed that I do not provide nails in all of the blocks.Certain blocks in each section may be provided with a nail and onlynecessary to operate a .nail set in home. The section e nails in onesection will not align with the nails in another section, as clearlyseen in Fig. 3, so that when the nail pointfrom one section penetratesanother section, it will go directly into a block a recess, therebyinsuring a rigid construccompleted.

For the purpose of illustration I have shown my invention as applied toa typehof floor, but I do not wish to be-llmited to t sections may bemade of solid strips or units and secured together in substantial] themanner shown.

What I claim ters-Patent is:

As an article of manufacture a floor section consisting of a base strip,a plurality of locks mounted on the base strips, the blocks havingaligning grooves in their opposite vertical faces for receiving splines,some of the blocks each having a recess opening from the base of one ofits spline grooves and desire to secure by Let the bl ing into onespline groove and their points terminatin short of the other-splinegroove, whereby when the sectionis lald against a i e section the .nailsmay be driven on through the blocks and throu h a spline into theabutting blocks of said like section.

testimony whereofI aflix mysignature.

CHARLES J. CARTER. v

rather than into were formed in the

